Lower the ladder down to help a colleague or friend!

The ladder-up or ladder-down concept makes you stop, think, and reconsider your behaviours.

The world can sometimes feel like a dog-eat-dog existence, and this has never been truer than in the current climate when so many people are struggling. Society teaches us to strive to better ourselves and out-perform others, that we need to climb to the top of the ladder and achieve a great success. Winning is the name of the game and if you elbow others out of the way to get there, that’s just part of what you must do to succeed.

For me the people who inspired and gained my respect are the ones who looked out for others rather than themselves. The self-promoting, egotistical ones are remembered as well but in a way that they might not have hoped to be remembered.

When the best leaders scaled an obstacle, they did not pull the ladder up behind them and gloat at their achievement, they lowered the ladder down to help others climb up too.

We are not all built the same and in my early life, and it probably is true for many, my natural inclination was to be ambitious rather than seeking to help others.

Back in the early 1990’s when I worked for an architectural practice as a CAD & IT Manager, I did something that made me realise the importance of letting the ladder down.

I had a small team of CAD technicians who turned hand-drawn architect’s sketches into CAD drawings using AutoCAD release 10. However, a recession hit, and we started to lose people. I therefore started to devote my lunchtimes to training the architects to use AutoCAD, but most of the people didn’t want to learn because they looked down on CAD and CAD technicians and so only a few came to my sessions. I recall one questioning why I was doing it, he felt that I would lose my team of technicians and undermine my position in the business. He was right about one thing, I lost my whole team and the practice shrank from a business of 35 staff to 7. Aside from the Partners, those that survived were ones who could drive AutoCAD.

There are plenty of reasons to feel low at the moment but helping others by lowering the ladder down to help them up can both help another person and raise your spirits.

Postscript

At that difficult time, it was essential to up-skill the workforce and find efficiencies, including new technology, as the business had to lower its costs to compete in a difficult market.

We are here again, and the same principles apply. You will need to upskill your staff and automate parts of your business to both increase your operational efficiency and reduce risk, as your competitors are already doing it.

Here at Symetri, we have a plethora of low-cost tools for automating your business processes that will enable your business to both survive and grow. One of these tools ia our AEC email management software, Excitech Mail which is designed to protect your business by providing easy access and visibility across your project communications. It also provides self-service training which gives your staff the snippets of knowledge they need to overcome day-to-day hurdles.

Our AEC Email Management Software include a number of benefits:

1. Find emails instantly - Powerful search and filtering, providing confidence that you will find what you need quickly for protection against risk and indemnity.
2. Flexible filing - Deploy Excitech Mail seamlessly into your existing IT infrastructure with filing flexibility that allows you to file emails to your preferred storage, including BIM 360, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, M-Files, Windows Explorer, and OneDrive.
3. Makes emails accessible to everyone - Provide staff immediate access to the project communications they need to maximise their productivity.
4. Offline Access - File, search, find and open your emails even when offline or out of office with our AEC email management software Excitech Mail, maintaining your operational efficiency no matter what.

Find out more about our AEC email management software, Excitech Mail by visiting our website here or to explore more options, please call us on 0345 370 1500 or email us at info@symetri.co.uk.

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